PLUME: Now going into Hot Fuzz, do you see any difference in the expectations going into this? Because obviously everyone’s watching this project.
FROST: Yeah, I mean… yeah… all eyes are going to be on us, but I think that’s only natural, you know? It’s like when you’d watch… when I, personally, when I hear Wes Anderson is bringing another film out, you think, “Brilliant! Let’s see what this is like!” You know, and Edgar and Simon are very clever and very talented script writers and we always get a good bunch of people and a good ensemble. I hope it doesn’t disappoint and I don’t think it will, you know?
PLUME: Well this will hopefully get people to stop asking you about another series of Spaced, right?
FROST: Yeah, yeah, we get… yeah, we do get it all the time. Simon always says never say never but I kinda think it’s gone on a bit too long now. Simon’s thirty-five, I’m thirty-three. It was about twentysomethings and I just think it’s slightly…
PLUME: You just need to wait a couple of years and do it as like The Big Chill.
FROST: Yeah. Yeah.
PLUME: Where everyone’s coming back and reuniting…
FROST: Before Spaced.
PLUME: Exactly.
FROST: Wasn’t it Before Sunset, something, Before Sunrise? It’ll be that kind of…”Didn’t we meet on a train and make a sitcom together once in France?”
PLUME: “Yes, wasn’t that wonderful? What happened to you, you were supposed to call.”
FROST: “Did you go to the BAFTAS? I didn’t.”
PLUME: See, that’s what it has to be… it has to be a reality series about what happened when you guys lost touch for years.
FROST: “Nick slumped back to waiting and drug taking.”
PLUME: Yes, yes, yes.
FROST: “Simon became a golf professional.”
PLUME: “Nick became manager.”
FROST: Yeah, “Nick became a manager at a chain restaurant called Chaquitos. And is now dead.”
PLUME: “Which has a cabaret night.”
FROST: Yeah. “They book bands.”
PLUME: “Which he regularly emcees.”
FROST: Yeah, “He regularly emcees the reggae night.”
PLUME: “And then also has an autograph table set up for after the show.”
FROST: God, me and Simon did a signing at the London Comic Con, actually, last year. That was very weird, that was a kind of… there were forty or fifty stars there, people who were in Alien, and Carl Weathers was there.
PLUME: You went drinking with David Prowse, didn’t you?
FROST: Yeah… was he there? I think he might have been there, actually. But you know, Warwick Davis was there and the guy who played the new Predator and… it was all very weird.
PLUME: Did Christopher Lee show up? I hear he shows up at all those.
FROST: I think… I think he did, actually. But I think my queue was… there was a WWE wrestler – (Rob) Van Dam. And I think I got more than (Rob) Van Dam.
PLUME: You were actually paying attention to how much more, weren’t you?
FROST: Yeah, he was right next to me. But he kept doing this awful thing when women wanted their photos taken with him – he would lift them up and then kiss his own bicep.
PLUME: Well.
FROST: Which I think is really creepy.
PLUME: Yeah, but that’s more hygenic than kissing them.
FROST: Yeah. I think… see, a lot of those people that do those things all the time, they would bring in tubs of Wet Wipes. So after they’d shook someone’s hand, they would Wet Wipe their hand.
PLUME: So is it something you would consider during your next signing?
FROST: No, I don’t… I don’t… I think the body…
PLUME: What about kissing your bicep?
FROST: Yeah, sure, I’d do that.
PLUME: I mean, if it’s a choice between one or the other, you gotta go with some affectation.
FROST: Yeah, I would kiss my own bicep.
PLUME: Yes. Or kiss Simon’s bicep.
FROST: Yeah. You know, we’ve kissed biceps before, sure.
PLUME: Well, but that was in a clearly heterosexual way.
FROST: Just to see how firm they were.
PLUME: And I just said that in an almost Elmer Fudd way. I must be channeling Jonathan Ross. Hetewosexual.
FROST: “In a hetewosexual…”
PLUME: Does no one ever mention the speech thing to Jonathan Ross or is it just accepted now?
FROST: No, it’s just… first, years ago, it was a thing. But since he’s become the biggest… I think the biggest entertainer in British entertainment…
PLUME: I’m shocked. He’s like your David Letterman over there.
FROST: Yeah, he is. But he’s great, he’s lovely, and he’s such a quick, funny bloke and he kind of is really passionate about film and, you know, television and stuff. It’s really nice to see.
PLUME: I’m just shocked at the idea of a successful chat show running only once a week.
FROST: Yeah, yeah, it’s on for an hour. But that’s Britain all over, you know?
PLUME: Nice and paced, and measured. And you build up to quality. Us, we churn quality out on a nightly basis.
FROST: But that’s the thing, I mean, you have to. When Simon did… f***ing hell, sorry, that chili is so hot… When Simon did Jimmy Kimmel and I was kinda looking around and saying, “F***, don’t they do this every night, three times a week or something?”
PLUME: No, it’s every night.
FROST: F***, how can you keep up this amount of energy? It’s amazing.
PLUME: Can you imagine doing an American series of twenty-four episodes a year?
FROST: God, I dunno, I’d just have to kinda go…I’d just have to shut down and just do it.
PLUME: But hey, it’s that kind of regimented thing that you enjoy.
FROST: Exactly, exactly. That’s one thing I enjoy about doing Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, is the fact that – you know, when I was a waiter, if I didn’t feel so good, I’d just phone in sick, not even if I didn’t feel good, if I wanted to stay home one day and smoke weed, I’d just phone in sick. It didn’t matter, you know, it wasn’t important. But doing this job, you absolutely cannot do that. And I find that quite liberating, you know?
PLUME: And they’ll send a car to pick you up.
FROST: Yeah, that is also very liberating.
PLUME: And they’ll haul you out of bed, throw you in the shower.
FROST: No, I’m pretty good, actually, at getting up. I’m usually up at half-past six. Because I write as well. I find that I can’t actually write after two or three o’clock in the afternoon. So, you know, I kind of have to stop then.
PLUME: What are you currently writing?
FROST: Apart from doing bits and pieces of La Traviata, I’m doing a sketch show that I’m acting in, that they’ve also asked me to write sketches for. And I’m also writing a screenplay… which is basically, it’s not a comedy at all. It’s a revenge piece about a boy whose family dies, so… you can kinda see where I’m getting that from at the moment. I think my funny bone needs recharging… at the moment.
PLUME: So obviously La Traviata will happen hopefully before the end of the year.
FROST: Yeah, god, I hope so. It would be a shame for it not to, because we’ve written some really good stuff.
PLUME: Where do your personal preferences lie about the kind of projects you want to pursue at this point? Because obviously, a lot of doors have opened to you now.
FROST: Yeah. I’d like to make films, you know? That’s what I’d really like to do, I think.
PLUME: Do you see yourself remaining within the British community or do want to transition to Ocean’s 13?
FROST: I’d like to come and do American films, but my American accent is pretty s***.
PLUME: So’s mine but that hasn’t stopped me.
FROST: I always think, “Why can’t there be an English person in that film?”
PLUME: Why can’t you be Eddie Izzard?
FROST: Yeah, exactly. Then I can do films in France.
PLUME: Yes, yes.
FROST: He does a lot of comedy in French, doesn’t he? Which I think is f***ing amazing.
PLUME: And German I hear.
FROST: I wish I was that smart.
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